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Shen arrived at the sixth stage feeling like shit. The pain, pressure, and fear were gone, but what he had gone through still permeated his thoughts.
He had resisted for ten seconds, and it had felt like an eternity. Could he have resisted for twenty? Thirty? What about five minutes? An hour?
If he was going to fight Void Spawn, he needed to find a way to strengthen his willpower.
At least the sixth stage had none of the creatures on sight. He was in the front line of a large group of people and was pleased to see Alicia not far away. At the far distance, other humans waited.
Shen wanted to fight as much as the next person, but he was glad to see the system was in a talkative mood. A little pause after what he had just gone through was appreciated.
Tutorial - 6th Stage
Congratulations on reaching the midway point of the Pioneer Tutorial!
Therefore, you deserve to be told some things.
As you've noticed, this is the first time we've named this tutorial anything different than just "tutorial." There's a reason for that.
Until now, you were fighting under the assumption of this being the only tutorial you have access to, which is false. The Pioneer Tutorial is only available once to each race for those who choose to enter the tutorial in the first three standard days after the assimilation of a homeworld.
You all chose to enter the tutorial within that time window and thus were brought to the Pioneer Tutorial, which has many advantages over common tutorials.
We didn't reveal this beforehand because the best way for you to take advantage of this tutorial was to believe this was your only chance at godhood.
The translation function told Shen that three standard days were around seven days and four hours on Earth.
He didn't take kindly to being led on like that, but there was nothing he could do about it.
Tutorial - 6th Stage
The most important advantage of the Pioneer Tutorial is the cost of things.
Everything in the Stat, Guardian, and Skill Stores costs one-tenth of their actual value in the Alliance. For this alone, many would give everything they have for a chance to join a Pioneer Tutorial.
The second most important advantage is revival.
Preserving your souls and giving you new bodies built from nothing requires significant resources. That is not something that can be done for everyone in the Multiverse Alliance. You might live your entire life without finding another place that does this or acquiring the required resources.
The third most important advantage is giving you adequate situations to improve—if you are good enough.
This ties with the second advantage. In the Pioneer Tutorial, you have a safe place to reach your extremes because you don't have to worry about dying and because every stage is engineered to push the best of you to higher heights. You are informed about the right things at the right time to focus on them and improve quickly.
However, even that opportunity is limited. It's only doable at the very beginning of your journey, or it can have enormous consequences. This is your only chance to improve this fast.
Finally, the fourth most important advantage is the G-tier learning ability upgrade you received for free.
The upgrade alone puts you above your peers on Earth.
The Pioneer Tutorial aims to make the best among you realize your potential. Some of you are here due to luck, but you will be repeatedly filtered out until only the very best of every age group remains.
From the sixth stage onward, every stage will be a match against other humans, and the loser will be eliminated from the tutorial.
Like all those who were eliminated until now, the losers will have their free learning ability upgrade removed unless they have bought the F-tier upgrade or higher.
We're informing you about these things now because you need to understand how important this tutorial is. This is your life, so you might let your opponents live out of pity if you want, but know that you stand to lose a lot.
The opportunities of the Pioneer Tutorial are better suited to the best of humankind.
Letting the weak party win out of pity would be a disservice to both your race and the Multiverse Alliance.
Shen was dumbfounded. Everything he had seen cost one-tenth their actual price? How was that possible?!
The C- spear art Skill he wanted to purchase next cost over five hundred thousand AP! The system was telling him its actual price was over five million AP instead?!
That was huge. Absolutely huge. Shen was glad he had bought the learning ability upgrade already, and it made his goal of purchasing the spear art even more important.
If he got the chance, he would purchase the rank up to the D-rank, too. That way, it would unlock a new Skill slot for his cultivation method.
As for giving up out of pity, that never crossed his mind.
This situation was like rare resources in the Eternal Empire. If they were limited, there had to be a way to determine who would hold them. Even if the Alliance could give everything to everyone for free, it would have been naive to expect them to do it.
As long as it didn't go against his moral values, he would do whatever it took to emerge victorious.
Defeating people who would be trying to defeat him in return did not cross those lines.
Tutorial - 6th Stage
However, one must take note that defeat here is not the end of the world. Those expelled from the Pioneer Tutorial are taken to the common tutorial.
The common tutorial allows for power growth but at a lower rate and lesser goal than the Pioneer Tutorial. It will fill any educational gaps that the defeated might still have.
It also contains mind specialists to help deal with what some races consider "extremely stressful pressure." Emotional distress and psychological trauma are not recognized as official disorders by the Multiverse Alliance. Therefore, there is no law against acts that may subject you to either depending on your subjective perception of things. This Pioneer Tutorial Administration has elected to use such situations to help you grow faster, and we stand by our decision. Even so, the specialists are still provided to you for free of charge.
All those who let themselves be turned into Void Spawn have chosen to leave this tutorial and are now in the caring hands of said specialists.
It was strange for the Alliance not to recognize some things as a disorder despite what looked like insistence from some races. It smelled of politics.
He was glad for the people to be taken care of though. Psychological and emotional balance was a big part of cultivator culture.
Tutorial - 6th Stage
The welcoming message to humanity said that we estimate you need at least a hundred million people to pass the tutorial within two years.
We were referring to the common tutorial.
The common tutorial aims to give everyone who enters it the ability of a peak F-rank, ready to step into the E-rank, without providing enough AP for the rank-up. The overwhelming majority of those here have enough power to pass the common tutorial.
So, don't fear defeat or defeating others. You will not be condemning humankind in either circumstance.
Shen was pleased to know he could crush all opposition without any terrible far-reaching consequences.
Tutorial - 6th Stage
As you've likely realized, you were paired only with people of the country you were in when you joined the tutorial. The same happened to everyone else, no matter how big or small their countries are. Exceptions were made to extraordinarily small nations, which were grouped together.
Those from the same country were further separated into 20 age groups. The ages in each group are:
- 15 only
- 16 only
- 17 only
- 18 only
- 19 only
- 20 only
- 21 and 22
- 23 and 24
- 25 and 26
- 27 and 28
- 29 and 30
- 31 to 33
- 34 to 36
- 37 to 39
- 40 to 44
- 45 to 49
- 50 to 54
- 55 to 59
- 60 to 69
- 70+
Different countries will only interact with each other at the 10th stage.
Mentions of age groups from now on will always pertain to those from your country.
Past mentions of numbers were always related to your country, too, and sometimes to your age group, depending on the context.
It felt like the tutorial was expanding their horizons.
When they joined it, they had been worried about surviving the first monsters. As they progressed, they were remembered that they were just a few fish in a larger pond.
Shen liked that. Being told too much from the start would've distracted them from what mattered.
Tutorial - 6th Stage
To make sure you understand what fighting others to their elimination means, this stage will exceptionally not have any middle or final bosses. It will focus only on fighting against other humans.
In your country, people of your age went better than average. The fifteen-year-olds in front of you went worse than average.
You're part of 42,196 sixteen-year-olds.
There are 28,992 fifteen-year-olds with the same hopes, dreams, and feelings as you.
Only one group will go to the next stage.
You have six hours.
Kill them all before the time is out, or both groups will be expelled.
The last person standing of either group will cause the entire group to pass.
Killing them will net the same AP as killing an enemy of the Alliance of the same rank.
After reading, Shen didn't wait for a single instant to sprint at the enemy group. AP was extra valuable, and he needed at least a hundred thousand for his Skill.
Despite his rush, he wasn't being arrogant again. He was approaching fast, but he would turn back if he found things were too troublesome.
He hadn't needed to worry.
There were no bleachers for the people on the back to see what was happening at the front. Only the few thousand people in the few first rows saw him, and their attacks did not go through each other like in the third stage's middle boss. Arrows, bolts, and spells hit each other in the air, making it easy to dodge the few that got to him. Some people even ended up hurting their own.
That's helped Shen realize he wouldn't be regenerating health and qi as fast as in the middle boss either. He would have to fight with extra care for his HP. More importantly, his willpower had also regenerated faster in the middle boss somehow. Here, he should prioritize saving willpower and be prepared to rest if needed.
When he got to the front line, he jumped over it.
There was no organized strategy to try to take him down. The people behind the line were utterly confused when an enemy fell on them out of nowhere.
Then the carnage started.
It took Evelyn an annoying couple of minutes to get a glimpse of what was going on. The system had placed the elites on the front lines and the groups behind. There were so many people around that just getting to a good position took time.
She wished she could use her gravity to fly, but she wasn't there yet. For now, she could only decrease people's weight, her included, not entirely pull people away from the ground.
Well, Sandra offered to let Evelyn ride her shoulders, but that would be just undignified.
When she got in a position to see the chaos, she saw a lot of tyrants terrorizing a bunch of children. The sixteen-year-olds were raining magic death over the poor fifteens, and nobody seemed to care about the cries of anguish of the other party. Evelyn even saw a girl who should be barely older than fourteen just cry on her knees on the ground until she got mauled to death.
She stopped paying attention to individuals after that.
That sucked, but the system had just told them how valuable AP was. She also wanted some.
She ran with Sandra until they got close enough for her to cast spells on the enemy. It was more or less a line where most long-ranged attackers had stopped. Sandra kept going to engage in close combat.
"Fuck this shit," she heard someone say beside her.
She turned to see Alicia Winter there. She had just complained, but she kept throwing fireballs against the kids.
Evelyn didn't mention the hypocrisy; she just started doing the same, except she used gravity instead of fire.
The meeting was providence. Evelyn had parted quite weirdly from Shen after his barrage of questions and the hurry to kill the regulars in the third stage's middle boss. Maybe she could make a connection here. After Shen had avoided Alicia's group, Evelyn had talked briefly with the girl to ask why, so they weren't complete strangers.
"Hi, I'm Evelyn," she said.
Alicia glanced at her sideways. "I remember you. You talked to my group on the third stage, middle boss."
"Oh, you remember."
An awkward silence followed as they kept throwing spells. Evelyn wished Sandra was there. Eventually, Alicia just stopped throwing fireballs. She left a single one floating in front of her, crossed her arms, and kept staring at it.
"What happened?" Evelyn asked.
"I can feel my willpower running out. Time to meditate."
Evelyn waited for her to sit down, but she just kept standing there, looking at her ball of fire. "You can meditate like that?"
Alicia shrugged. "I can learn like this. I call it meditation, but who knows. For all I know, what I'm doing might be called either Reaching the Heavens or Being an Idiot. Shen would know."
Evelyn felt her heartbeat speed up. That's the opening she needed. "I invited Shen to join the group I'll create on Earth, but he didn't give a definite answer. Did he comment anything with you?"
"Nope," Alicia replied simply, but she turned to face Evelyn. "What is this group about?"
The question was made very casually, but while Evelyn wasn't great at actual talking, she had learned how to read faces and postures. In her circle, you either learned early or said bye-bye to your inheritance, usually through a sexy, charming, and mysterious stranger that rocked your life then disappeared.
Anyway, she had to tread carefully around Alicia. The girl was protective of Shen and ready to fight for him.
"That's a great question, actually," Evelyn replied. "I was hoping you could also tell me a little bit about Shen's moral views? You see, I'm planning on creating a group to protect Earth from abuses committed by people with the kinds of power we're getting..."
Evelyn explained everything. Alicia listened in silence.